In his perfect world, Wade Phillips would be deep into preparing the Dallas Cowboys for a run at hosting the Super Bowl on their own turf. Those plans were blown to smithereens weeks ago, however, so now he must start from scratch again.

But, after all these years, Phillips' itch to coach remains as intense as ever, never mind a few disappointments — read firings — along the way. It's like his daddy, Bum, says: "The water always clears."

Hired as defensive coordinator by the Texans on Wednesday, Phillips has flown home to Dallas to take care of "a lot of honey-do's." But he'll return Monday to Houston — where he first tried coaching as a graduate assistant at the University of Houston more than 40 years ago — to take on yet another daunting restoration project.

As badly broken as the Texans' defense may be at the moment, it's no more of a wreck than others he has been asked to fix. This ain't his first rodeo. Not even close. The Texans become the ninth NFL team to employ Phillips, who turns 64 in June, and he has coached in the playoffs for six of them.

Only once in seven previous stops has he not inherited a bad defense and immediately made it significantly better. That happened in Philadelphia, where he was hired by Buddy Ryan, an iconic defensive guru in his own right who didn't relinquish much control.

Signing on with the Texans "felt right" for myriad reasons, Phillips said, not the least of which was his respect for owner Bob McNair — no matter that McNair had passed him over twice for head-coach openings — and his strong relationship with coach Gary Kubiak, which dates to their days in Denver together. Kubiak's wife, Rhonda, and Wade's wife of 41 years, Laurie, are pals.

Phillips knows he could have shopped his services around, but it made no sense to him. Houston is where he wanted to be. The first NFL city to which he has returned, it's a place of longstanding friendships and great memories, a place where making a difference will feel that much better than anywhere else would have.

"I think I can contribute," Phillips said humbly, "and I'm really looking forward to going back to work. You spend a few weeks watching games on TV and you realize how much you miss it. I've always loved the pressure of coaching."

A step back? No biggie

For the fifth time in his NFL tenure — that has to be unprecedented — he has accepted what most would call a step backward, reverting to an assistant's role after having been a head coach, most recently of what's arguably the highest-profile franchise in the NFL.

Asked how Wade can keep his ego so completely in check, Bum said: "Wade loves the kids, the games, the whole atmosphere. The only thing he likes is football. He never got interested in anything else. He gets up in the morning thinking about football and he goes to bed at night thinking about it."

Wade laughed when confronted with the same question.

"The way I see it," he said, "being defensive coordinator is like being a halfway head coach. Look, coaching's coaching, no matter what your title is. It's about putting the right people in the right place to make plays."

Do the Texans have the right players for Phillips' reconfigured 3-4 defense? He'll find that out soon enough (no, he's not worried). What's already a given is those players didn't make nearly enough plays in 2010. The Texans ranked 30th overall and last in pass defense, numbers reminiscent of the 1981 Saints, the first team with which he assumed coordinator duties under Bum.

New Orleans had gone 1-15 the previous year and, Phillips recalls, "was last in about everything." The Saints won only four games in the first season under Phillips, but they improved enough on Wade's side of the ball to go from 28th in yards allowed to 11th. Two seasons later, they finished No. 2 in total defense.

Similar transformations followed in Denver, Buffalo, Atlanta and San Diego, where a 4-12 team with a soft defense improved to 12-4 the next year, climbing from 31st in points permitted to 11th. The Broncos soared from 20th in points surrendered to first in one year's time with Wade taking the defensive helm. Although already a playoff team, even Dallas improved by four victories in his first season and jumped from 20th to 13th in points allowed.

It has happened too dramatically, too many times to be accidental or coincidental. Anyone who thinks Phillips is damaged goods because of how badly things went awry with the Cowboys last fall doesn't understand the esteem with which he's held among his coaching peers.

Nobody, of course, is a bigger Wade Phillips fan than Bum, but another guy who knows his way around the NFL, Dan Reeves, is probably No. 2 on that list. Reeves hired Wade twice to be his defensive coordinator, first in Denver and then Atlanta. Wade also succeeded Reeves as head coach both places, and Reeves' son-in-law, Joe DeCamillis, left Jacksonville to work as Phillips' special-teams coordinator in Dallas.

Reeves impressed

"The first time I saw Wade coach was when (the Saints) came out to scrimmage (the Broncos) in Greeley, (Colo.)," Reeves said. "I already knew Bum from coming to Houston to play golf with him and our daughters had become good friends, but I didn't know Wade. I watched him run a drill between his linebackers and our running backs and was really impressed. I followed his career after that.

"He was working in Philadelphia when I needed a coordinator (in Denver), and he did a wonderful job for us. Same thing in Atlanta. He's such a great guy and just real easy to work with. He does an outstanding job of getting coaches to work together.

"I don't know anybody in the business who doesn't like and respect Wade Phillips."

Risking accusations of nepotism, Bum hired Wade when he was only 29 to coach the Oilers' linebackers for him in 1976. A year later, he took charge of a defensive line populated by the likes of future Hall-of-Famer Elvin Bethea, a Super Bowl ring winner in Curley Culp and the famous Smith brothers, Bubba and Tody.

That tough, intimidating bunch earned him his first NFL stripes and proved he had a future.

"When I found out I was moving to the defensive line," Phillips said, "my first thought was, 'Oh boy, now I've got to coach Curley Culp.' Curley hadn't spoken to me once the year before. I don't think he liked me."

But, after standing up to a recalcitrant Tody Smith one afternoon during practice, Wade won those men over. The next day, Tody Smith did what he was supposed to do, Phillips said, "because the other guys talked to him and told him to do it because I was right and it was the right thing for the team."

Bethea remembers Phillips fondly, saying: "Yeah, we were hard on him. Here he was this college kid — I don't think he even had hair on his legs — coming in and telling us what to do. 'Go here, go there. Do this, do that.' He was always coaching his (butt) off. I'd say, 'Wade, relax. Let us play. We'll be fine.' But he earned our respect. He's still my guy. I'm proud of what he's done, and I'm real happy he's coming back to Houston. He'll be good for the Texans.

"I may have to go to a few practices now, just to give him trouble again."

Yet another challenge

Bethea or no Bethea, Phillips will have his hands full come training camp.

"You don't usually go to a new place because the team was already doing well," he said. "We've got some challenges, but I think the players are going to like our defense. It'll let them be aggressive, and it's easy to play.

"My experience with players has always been they're excited to try something new."